BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 
19 
“I returned with renewed energy to my laboratory w r ork, 
which I had omitted for some months. 
“After I discontinued my medical studies, I had the thought 
to work at the University of Pennsylvania for a Ph. D. degree, 
and during some portions of the years 1885 and 1886,1 studied 
with close application, mathematics, with a Mr. Howard 
Lukens. He undertook in coaching me to prepare for passing 
the preliminary examinations which would allow me to enter 
the University as a student of the Junior year. The Dean of 
the University had arranged to allow me to pursue my studies 
in chemistry and botany with a view to the degree, if I should 
satisfactorily pass some preliminary examinations in mathe¬ 
matics, German, French, and English literature. The require¬ 
ments in mathematics were considerable, and Mr. Lukens 
worked conscientiously with me in that branch. Mr. Nathan 
Haskell Dole, the writer and translator, was then living in 
Philadelphia, and he was introduced to me by Mr. Henry Ho¬ 
bart Brown, the principal of a boys’ school in the city, as the 
most competent person to fit me for the examinations in the 
other branches, and we spent the winter in as serious work as 
my health permitted. I do not wish to forget mentioning Dr. 
Frederick P. Henry, a well-known practitioner in Philadelphia, 
and at the time when I met him, a professor of Histology and 
Microscopy at the Polyclinic College. 
“He was a warm advocate of the higher education for 
women, and later on became a professor of the Practice of 
Medicine in the Woman’s Medical College. I took one private 
course of his instruction in his branches at the Polyclinic. 
Dr. Henry was interested in my scientific work, and after our 
lessons, he would often keep me in his laboratory discussing 
subjects relating to science and literature. He was a fine 
classical scholar. . . . 
“Dr. Henry had heard me speak of a Mr. Thompson, the 
keeper of the snake-house at the Zoological Garden. I had, on 
several occasions, assisted him in feeding the rattlesnakes 
according to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell’s method of forced feed¬ 
ing of reptiles in confinement. He was desirous of seeing 
the process, and I arranged to take him to the Zoo with me 
